CEO says Wahlburgers hunting for second restaurant location

Wednesday

Jul 11, 2012 at 12:01 AMJul 11, 2012 at 11:20 AM

Actors Mark and Donnie Wahlberg see the potential for a global business in the burger shop they opened last year in Hingham with their brother, chef Paul Wahlberg. To that end, they’ve hired a former co-chief operating officer at the Panera bakery-cafe chain to be the new CEO of Wahlburgers.

Jon Chesto

Actors Mark and Donnie Wahlberg see the potential for a global business in the burger shop they opened last year in Hingham with their brother, chef Paul Wahlberg.

To that end, they’ve hired a former co-chief operating officer at the Panera bakery-cafe chain to be the new CEO of Wahlburgers.

Rick Vanzura said he left his job at Panera in December and went to work with the Wahlbergs on a consulting basis until April, when he was hired to essentially handle the chief executive’s responsibility. Vanzura said the appointment to CEO became official last month.

Vanzura said the company is hunting for the right location to open a second corporate-owned restaurant in Greater Boston, most likely within the Route 128 beltway. He said he hopes to have that restaurant open by this time next year.

The company eventually will look at franchising the brand for locations outside of Greater Boston, but Vanzura said that’s not going to happen anytime soon, at least not this year. He said Mark and Donnie Wahlberg envision the business becoming an internationally-known brand.

“Both of them see great potential for it, somewhere well down the road, to be a global chain,” Vanzura said. “The road has to run through location No. 2, in Boston.”

Vanzura said he wants to make sure the company has systems in place so the Hingham restaurant, which opened in October at the Hingham Shipyard off Route 3A, can be replicated properly in other locations. Among other things, Vanzura said the company is figuring out how to reshape its beverage menu if it only has a beer and wine license for a location, instead of the full liquor license it has for the original shop.

“You can see a lot of restaurant (chains) where the seeds of their destruction were sown by making big mistakes in their first restaurants and that’s something we certainly want to avoid,” Vanzura said.

Vanzura said his job also entails working as CEO of Alma Nove, a separately-run restaurant in Hingham that’s also owned by the Wahlbergs. Vanzura works at an office across the street from the restaurants, at 350 Lincoln St., and oversees a combined staff of 150 to 200 employees.

By joining the Wahlbergs, the Hingham resident was able to significantly shrink his daily commute. Vanzura said his drive to the Panera office in Needham (the chain’s main office is in Missouri) often took 50 minutes on a good day, and now he can make it to work in under 12.

Vanzura said he expects Wahlburgers will remain headquartered in the Boston area no matter how big it gets and it will stay based in Hingham for at least the near future. “Given that Paul and I both live in Hingham,” he said, “we have every intention to keep it here for as long as we possibly can.”